11.30AM THE BACK COVER – AND THE SONG WITH NO NAME
Easily the most notable thing on the official tracklisting is track 10. How do you say that? Well, the answer is ‘Colour Spectrum’, apparently. Colour spectrum. Don’t be fooled into ignoring the other track titles though – they’ve got one called ‘Fun’ lurking in there too. Rebecca ‘Friday’ Black collab?

12:00PMTRACK 1 – ‘A HEAD FULL OF DREAMS’
The start of this 14-second clip seems to have more than a tinge of the disco-jangle guitar from lead single ‘Adventure Of A Lifetime’, which could indicate that this album has a couple of recurring melodic themes. Then, though, it expands – or drops, perhaps – into very EDM thumping.

As usual for Coldplay, euphonic melody seems to be the priority here. As Martin said in a recent interview, the ‘Oh oh oh’ stuff means something. “It’s because I don’t want anything to get in the way of the mood of the music. The feeling is there without having to describe what it is. And we do that quite a lot. People say it’s a bit repetitive to say ‘oh oh oh oh oh oh,’ but you can’t translate the melody into words.”

1:00PM TRACK 2 – ‘BIRDS’
Martin’s voice is lower than on the last track, but nowhere near the growl of ‘Yes’ territory. It’s also got Bieber levels of breathiness, with the lyrics “We got this moment, you and me, guilty of nothing but geography” whispered over bassist Guy Berryman’s jocund bassline and twinkly guitar from Jonny Buckland. It doesn’t sound like anything they’ve done before.

It’s also becoming apparent that kaleidoscopes are Coldplay’s new favourite toy. Hopefully there’ll be some actual trippiness to match the visuals later on.

2:00PM
TRACK 3 – ‘HYMN FOR THE WEEKEND’
There it is – the track inspired by Flo Rida. There’s a funny story about this one too. “I thought, it’s such a shame that Coldplay could never have one of those late-night club songs, like ‘Turn Down for What,'” said Chris Martin recently. “What would we call it if we had one? I thought I’d like to have a song called ‘Drinks on Me’ where you sit on the side of a club and buy everyone drinks because you’re so fucking cool.

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“I was chuckling about that, when this melody came – “drinks on me, drinks on me” – then the rest of the song came out. I presented it to the rest of the band and they said, “We love this song, but there’s no way you can sing ‘drinks on me.’” So that changed into “drink from me” and the idea of having an angelic person in your life. Then that turned into asking Beyoncé to sing on it.”

She most certainly does sing on it. Trumpets, a hip-hop drum track, a deep groove – even after R&B-influenced, Rihanna-featuring ‘Princess of China’, this is quite a departure. And it’s not trippy. At. All.

3:00PM
TRACK 4 – EVERGLOW
Wow. Loud. Emotional. Martin’s pelting this smooth acoustic guitar jam out at the top of his lungs, and it sounds like it could be this album’s ‘Fix You’ – but not in a bad way. “Yeah I live for this feeling,” he sings, “this everglooooooow”. That’s the stadium tour sorted then.

5:00PM
TRACK 6 – ‘FUN’
This gives very little away. Is it a knowingly downbeat song called ‘Fun’? Or is this bit the intro to a massive, stadium-breaking riot of sound and colour? Knowing Coldplay, and judging by the anticipatory 808 heartbeat, it’s almost certainly the latter. Add into the mix that they’ve tagged Swedish pop singer Tove Lo, who features on the track, and we could have ourselves an ‘anthem’.

6:00PM
TRACK 7 – ‘KALEIDOSCOPE’
Now this is more like it. A bit of odd voiceover, some pensive piano – as long as some more weird stuff happens, this track should at least approach being psych-influenced. With a name like ‘Kaleidoscope’ it had better.